


in all the ways but one

by SiriSunrider



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Disjointed narrative, Early Force Bond, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Force Ships It, Told in Snippets, less is more
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 14:29:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13977069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiriSunrider/pseuds/SiriSunrider
Summary: "Are you a ghost?"The words are whispered so softly, he wouldn't have heard them if not for the silence in his hut. He had been trying to sleep when the humming started."No.""Are you certain? I heard that ghosts roam the ship graveyards and I think… I think you followed me home.""I'm not a ghost," he assures her, trying to make sense of it. "Are you?"The girl's brow furrows. "Of course not.""Then what are you?"Her mouth opens once, closes, then opens again as if she can't quite decide how to answer. After a moment, her face clears of expression and she whispers, "I'm nothing."





	in all the ways but one

**Author's Note:**

> Someone else had probably already done this and executed it better than me, but here is my take on an Early Force Bond for Rey and Ben.
> 
> PS - I wasn't a Reylo until TLJ, so this is my first fic about them. Just keep that in mind.

  Her eyes are turned skyward as she licks the plate clean, savoring every last morsel of the synthetic meal she’s worked so hard for. Another day on Jakku with the night fast approaching. Already she can see a star twinkling on the horizon as the sun sets behind her.

  “I wonder what wine tastes like,” Rey voices her thoughts aloud. Not to herself, exactly; she isn’t alone. At least not for the moment.

  “Worse than you’d think,” Ben remarks from beside her. He kneels in the sand, but doesn’t unsettle it beneath him. He can’t.

  “Really?” Rey asks, not looking at him. She doesn’t need to look to know he is still there. “I wonder why so many people like it, then?”

  “There are reasons,” he replies vaguely, “but none of them good enough for you. Alcohol dehydrates you, and I know you don’t get enough water as it is.”

  Rey shrugs. “My vaporator is working just fine.”

  “It wasn’t two weeks ago,” he counters. He is staring at her; she can see it from the corner of her eye. It is touching the way his eyes darkened with concern for her. She holds back a smile.

  “It’s worked fine since then, though. I’ve been doing well lately,” she assures him.

  “You look better,” Ben admits, albeit grudgingly. “Though it wouldn’t take much.”

  If she thought it would do anything, she might have shoved him. It wouldn’t, so she doesn’t. Instead, she turns her head to regard him, taking in his tousled hair and haggard eyes. “And what about you?”

  “What about me?” The shift in his gaze is noticeable. His concern is gone, replaced with something guarded. His shoulders, relaxed before, straighten.

  “Still wearing black, I see?”

  “I always do.”

  “Not always,” Rey says, glancing him over. His dark clothing makes him look paler than he actually is, or maybe Rey herself is simply used to only seeing skin touched by the sun.

  “I’m fine,” he replies, looking away from her.

  “You look tired.”

  “As do you,” he shoots back, something like anger in his voice, but not quite. Then, after a beat, his voice softens. “You still have nightmares?”

  Rey tries not to think about it, and pushes her nighttime fears away. The sun hasn’t set yet. “Yes,” she replies simply, making a show of examining her plate with interest.

  “So do I,” he replies, softer still.

  The desert goes deathly quiet then, and Rey knows that he is no longer beside her. She picks up the plate and takes it inside.

 

*

 

  The way Unkarr Plutt looks at Rey makes her skin crawl. His gaze had once been dismissive and annoyed, but it had turned to something more sinister as Rey grew older. She much prefers the anger. Still, dealing with him is necessary to survive. She brings him the salvaged parts he desires, and in turn he provides her with meals.

  She is at his mercy.

  Rey refuses to talk to Ben about it; there wasn’t anything he can do, and he only becomes upset.

  “I’ll kill him,” he swears vehemently.

  “No you won’t,” Rey sighs back, rations in hand. Not as many as she’d hoped, but then again it never is.

  “I will.” The conviction in his voice would have made Rey believe him, were it not impossible.

  Instead she walks back home as Ben vows solemnly to once day exact his revenge.

  He disappears before Niima is out of sight.

 

*

 

  On her seventeenth birthday, Ben doesn’t show up at all. Rey works all day dismantling a crashed land speeder, and takes home most of the parts for herself.

  When she arrives home well after dark, she methodically scratches a line on her wall, and then cries herself to sleep.

 

*

 

  “What happened to your face?” Rey blurts out, taken by surprise by Ben’s sudden appearance in the ship graveyard. She’s up to her elbows in parts, but there he stands.

  He narrows his eyes at her, and she sees the way his hands twitch at his side. He’s annoyed, but holding back. “What do you mean?” he asks through his teeth.

  She takes a grease covered hand and touches her own chin before pointing back to his face. “ _That!_ ”

  “It’s a beard, or are you so sheltered that you’ve never seen one?” He bites it out, but underneath Rey knows she’s offended him. Then again, he’s just insulted her back.

  “I’m not sheltered,” Rey protests, her own eyes narrowing at him, “and I’ve seen a beard before. _That_ isn’t a beard.”

 

*

 

  The next time Rey sees Ben, his face is smooth. She doesn’t mention it, but when she sleeps that night, she’s smiling.

 

*

 

  “How old are you now?” she asks him, settling into her blankets as he sits on the floor a meter away from her.

  “Twenty-seven,” he replies.

  Rey blinks. “That’s strange.”

  “Is it?” he asks, but doesn’t sound as though he’s interested in her elaborating.

  “Did you do anything special?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t either,” she sighs. Not that it would be news to him; Rey never does anything on her birthday, and never has.

  Ben’s eyes flicker back to her face. “When was your birthday?”

  “A few weeks ago. Seventeen, now.”

  He is silent for a few moments, and in the fading light Rey thinks he is gone until he remarks, “So young to be on your own.”

  “I’m not alone when you’re here,” Rey says, pushing away all the nasty thoughts that tell her otherwise. “And neither are you.”

  She can’t see it, but she feels his eyes on her, searching for something but she doesn’t know what. He’s gone before he ever replies.

 

*

 

  _Ben Solo doesn’t expect to find her in his hut at Luke’s Academy, but then who would have? He’d walks down after supper, in a sour mood but grateful that he will soon be alone. A few of the other apprentices walk with him, having chosen to keep their own huts in the relative vicinity. He feigns interest in them as best he can, but he isn’t a politician like his mother, or gregarious like his father. He prefers the solitude over the pretense._

_He says his goodnights to the others, and slips into his hut. It is dark but for the lantern resting on his night stand that he accidentally left on. He blinks in surprise when he sees her. A small thing, scrappy and dirty as she sits on the floor. Something in the atmosphere shifts, almost as if the Force itself is humming._

_“Are you one of Master Luke’s…?” he asks, but somehow already knows the answer is no. Luke wouldn’t have left the girl out here alone while they were having supper, no matter how mangy._

_The girl looks up and gasps, getting to her feet quickly. She appears confused, but answers his question promptly. “I’m one of Unkar Plutt’s,” she says hastily, ogling him openly as she does so._

_Ben furrows his brow in turn. He’s not heard of Unkar Plutt, and it seems strange for a little girl to wonder so far. Luke chose the location for the Academy with solitude in mind; it was supposed to be peaceful and free of outsiders. She can’t be more than twelve years old, and while she looks like she’s been through a lot, it seems unlikely that she traveled the hundred kilometers to get here._

_“You can’t be in here,” he tells her._

_She looks indignant, of all things. Half his size, but looking as though she is prepared take him on if necessary. “No,” she says, her eyes darkening. “This is_ my _home. You’re the one who can’t be here.”_

_Ben regards her, his curiosity piqued substantially. The pulsing in the Force increases; there is something going on…_

_“I’m taking you to Luke,” he concludes. Much as he and his Uncle have their differences, Luke is the authority and might better deal with a little girl who seems to think she lives here. He beckons her forward._

_The girl bristles, taking a step back. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”_

_There is something the Force is trying to tell him, something that he can’t place. The humming…_

_“I’m not going to hurt you,” he assures her. He knows his stature intimidates some of the other students, even the ones his own age. He is familiar enough with the situation to recognize the fear in the girl’s eyes. “Luke will know what to do.”_

_He hopes._

_*_

  

  Rey struggles against the weight of the engine. She doesn’t have the right _tools_ for this, but she will be damned before she goes and asks to borrow anything from Plutt. Knowing him, he’ll try to take the project away from her all together.

  “You don’t have the body strength for it,” Ben tells her from the other side of the speeder. “You should have built the frame around the engine, not the other way around.”

  “So helpful to tell me what I _should_ have done,” Rey remarks sarcastically. She grunts and heaves against it. What she really needs is to create a pulley system.

  “I’d help you if you’d let me,” he tells her, somewhere between frustrated and earnest.

  “Ben,” she says in warning. She really doesn’t need this right now. The engine budges, as does something else; from within there is a distinctive _click_ and Rey doesn’t know what that means.

  “Rey,” he says, his tone matching hers. “I don’t know why you’re so stubborn on this.”

  She tries to assess the damage. “ _Please_ not now, Ben.”

  He is silent for a few minutes, as is his custom when she berates him. Eventually, he says, “Fine.”

  The way he says it makes it clear that it is _not_ fine in his eyes, but Rey has bigger problems. After several more attempts, Rey sighs against the engine in resignation. “I think you’re right,” she relents. “I’m going to have to put the frame around it.”

  “Yes,” he agrees. He doesn’t need to say ‘ _I told you so_ ’ for her to know that’s what he means.

 

*

 

  _In the meditation chambers, Ben kneels opposite Luke. The master strokes his beard in contemplation, as Ben defers to his wisdom._

_“… but when I turned back around, she was gone,” Ben concludes with his tale._

_After several moments of silence, his uncle finally speaks. “An apparition,” Luke thinks aloud. “A ghost most likely, though all the ones that I’ve encountered were aware that they were dead.”_

_Ben shifts. He’s heard of Luke occasionally speaking to the long deceased Obi-Wan Kenobi, for whom Ben himself is named. But Luke had met Obi-Wan before the Jedi Master had died; Ben has no such connection with the little girl._

_“There was a…” Ben struggles to find the words,” … a pulse in the Force. I felt connected to her.”_

_“There may be a reason she reached out to you,” Luke tells him. “If that is the case, she will appear again.”_

_The thought of a ghost, a spirit of any kind being connected to him is unnerving. “I don’t know what to do,” he admits. Mastering his skills with a lightsaber is one thing, encountering apparition in the Force is another._

_“Speak with her,” Luke advises. “She may well have something to teach you.”_

_*_

  Though the speeder takes longer than expected to complete, Rey is the proud owner of a custom vehicle.

  “I can do so much more in a day now,” Rey tells Ben excitedly. He seems impressed.

  The freedom it creates for her is incredible. Rey wishes she’d done it years ago, but she optimistically thinks that it is better late than never. In a day Rey can now travel to wherever she wants, within reason of course. Fresh crash sites are within the realm of possibility now. She can explore the badlands without worry of sinking right through the sand, and she can carry so much more to Niima and home. No more travelling through the dark at night, or camping out in the desert because she’s travelled too far.

  “You could trade it,” Ben tells her. “If it works as well as you say it does, you could buy passage off your world.”

  That dampens the mood somewhat. “I don’t want to leave.”

  “Don’t you?” he asks, and it angers her that he would presume to know her own thoughts.

  It is even more upsetting that she would presume to think he wouldn’t.

 

 

*

 

  _He sees her again much later. So much later, in fact, that he almost starts to think that the first time had been his imagination. He is meditating in the afternoon, or at least trying to. Rays of sun streamed in through the window, creating a hazy heat that makes Ben want to sleep. He doesn’t worry when the sun is up; when there is so much light present, it’s easy to cast out the darkness._

_Night is a different story._

_His eyes are closed, and he concentrates on his breathing just like Uncle Luke taught him. Then the humming begins._

_He opens his eyes slowly, not surprised to find her sitting there. She looks startled, but not quite afraid. “It’s you again,” she says almost reverently._

_Luke had told him to talk to her, but he has little experience with children. “What’s your name?” he asks as kindly as he can. He thinks that if he frightens her she might disappear before he can learn the purpose of her presence._

_“Rey,” she replies simply. “What’s yours?”_

_“Ben,” he answers without hesitation. “Why are you here?”_

_“Because I have to be.” She looks at him as though that should be obvious. “Do you work for Unkar Plutt?”_

_There is something behind her words that seems guarded. “No, I’m not with him.”_

_“You’re lucky, then.”_

 

*

 

  One morning Rey walks out with her staff to train, but finds Ben there instead. He’s training, but not with a staff like her. A training sword of some kind.

  He’s shirtless.

  Rey blinks in surprise, unsure of how to react. She’s seen him like this before, in this very situation in fact, but somehow it feels different. The sight of him sends an unfamiliar wave of heat over her not caused by Jakku’s sun. She gapes for a moment as he moves, and then decides to turn around, cheeks flaming.

  “Rey?” he calls, thankfully after her back is already turned.

  “Ben,” she acknowledges, nodding but not turning around.

  “What’s wrong?” His voice comes up behind her, and then he is standing in front of her.

  Her eyes stare at his chest, glistening with sweat, before she remembers to look at his eyes. “Nothing,” she squeaks. “I was just going to practice.”

  He glances down to the staff in her hand, then back up to her face. “Let me help.”

  Her brows furrow. “How?”

  “Sparring,” he explains. “It might help if you go against someone real.”

  _Real._ The word attaches to her heart and drags it down to her stomach before she has the chance to blink. “I don’t understand,” she protests. “We can’t duel, Ben. It won’t – it won’t _work_.”

  “We’ll go slowly,” he assures her. As Rey regards him, she realizes that he almost looks… happy? Excited, maybe, at the prospect. “I’ll help you.”

  In defiance of her own heart, Rey forces her it back into her chest and grips her staff more tightly. “All right,” she says more confidentially than she feels. “I’ll go easy on you.”

  He raises an eyebrow at her bravado, but Rey recognizes that he’s pleased by her challenge. “We’ll see.”

 

*

 

  _She appears infrequently and never for very long. Often Ben finds himself only just aware of her presence before she is gone again. After the fifth occurrence, he still doesn’t know why they keep seeing one another._

_“Are you a ghost?”_

_The words are whispered so softly, he wouldn’t have heard them if not for the silence in his hut. He had been trying to sleep when the humming started._

_“No.”_

_“Are you certain? I heard that ghosts roam the ship graveyards and I think… I think you followed me home.”_

_“I’m not a ghost,” he assures her, trying to make sense of it. “Are you?”_

_The girl’s brow furrows. “Of course not.”_

_“Then what are you?”_

_Her mouth opens once, closes, then opens again as if she can’t quite decide how to answer. After a moment, her face clears of expression and she whispers, “I’m nothing.”_

_*_

_“Ben,” Luke says, resting a hand on the younger man’s arm. Ben has long since become taller than his uncle, which thankfully spares him from pats on the head and shoulder from nearly everyone except Chewbacca._

_He turns to face him, squinting as the afternoon light hits his eyes. His eyes ask the question that his mouth does not._

_“Did the girl appear to you again?”_

_It has been weeks since Ben originally went to Luke for guidance and received nothing of value._

_“No,” he lies, and he in’t sure why._

_*_

“I’d never actually drink,” Rey says to the darkness. “I wouldn’t want to… rely on it.”

  “You’re not like them, Rey.”

 

*

 

  _“Why are you with Unkar Plutt?”_

_Rey shrugs, her hands working at something that Ben can’t see. “He’s watching over me while my parents are away.”_

_“How long have your parents been away?”_

_“Awhile.”_

 

*

 

  He helps her through her footwork, and she exposes the weakness of his wide, aggressive swings. They both are careful never to put too much force behind their jabs, conscious that it would shatter the illusion.

  He forgets, or she does. Maybe it isn’t that at all and she just lets her hope reign in those moments. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Either way, his blade passes through hers and her staff pierces the image of his torso on more than one occasion. Despite all the years they’ve spent together, it startles her to see it.

  They meet eyes after he swings too hard and the strength of it carries him right through her. Breathing hard, neither of them look away until he disappears again.

 

*

 

  _“Do you have parents?”_

_The pen is in his hand, poised to start on a fresh flimsy. A gift from his mother. She hadn’t sent a note._

_“Everyone has parents,” he tells her absently._

_“Are they with you?”_

_“No.”_

_“Are they alive?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“How do you know?”_

_He pauses, then puts the pen down. “My Uncle keeps in contact. I would know if… something was to happen. You don’t have a way to contact your parents?”_

  _The girl shakes her head. “They’ll be back, though.”_

 

*

 

  “You’re hurt,” Rey points out, concerned to see a swelling lip and dried blood on Ben’s face.

  He brushes her off. “It’s nothing.”

  “It doesn’t look like nothing.” She tries to follow him, the uneven sand making it difficult to keep up. He doesn’t have the same hindrances that she does.

  He whirls, his face livid beyond anything Rey has witnessed in him before. “I said, _it’s nothing!”_

 

*

 

  _She cries the first time he ignores her._

_He is with the others at breakfast, eating a basic gruel when she appears between two of his fellow apprentices. She says hello, asks him questions._

_The others can’t see her, nor sense her there. They won’t understand._

_The tears are large, rolling over her cheeks as she begs him to look at her._

  _He takes it out on the others in the sparring ring._

 

*

 

  It’s unbearably hot, and Rey wants nothing more than to slip off her tunic and lay out on top of her blankets until she finally falls asleep.

  Instead, her sweat soaked clothes cling to her skin as Ben sits with his back against the wall. The blood is gone, but a purple bruise has bloomed across the left side of his jaw.

  “Are they your Unkar Plutt?” Rey finally asks, staring at him even as he refuses to look at her.

  He shifts in the silence of the hum. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Rey stares, unbelieving but patient. “You haven’t mentioned your family in years.”

  “I have no family.”

  “Everyone has a family. You told me that.”

  He is silent for a long while, and Rey watches as though just staring at him will open his mind to her.

 

*

 

  _If it is any consolation to Luke, Ben makes it a point to avoid letting Snoke in on the secret as well. Rey is a puzzle for Ben to discover the solution to and no one else._

_He carefully locks her away in his mind._

 

*

 

  “Rey.”

  Smiling, Rey continues listening to the elderly woman sitting across from her as they scrub down their parts. It’s a challenge when the hum is so loud.

  “I wish you would tell me where you are.”

  _Not now Ben,_ she thinks. _Really not now._

  “I would take you away from that place in a second and you’d never have to scavenge again.”

  The woman’s story is very long.

 

*

 

_“You can’t be doing this on your own,” he concludes upon facing her yet again. “The effort would kill you.”_

_“Doing what on my own?” she asks, her brow and nose scrunching in confusion._

_“Appearing to me.”_

_“You’re the one that appears to me,” she corrects, face still pinched._

_“Do I?” he asks, another piece coming together. “Can you see my surroundings?”_

_“I don’t understand.”_

_“I can’t see yours,” he says almost to himself. “Just you.”_

_She stares up at him; he could swear she’s grown taller since they first met._

_“I still think you might be a ghost,” she tells him._

_For whatever reason, it makes him smile if only for a moment._

_*_

“Don’t make that face at me, Ben.”

  “What face?” he asks, still making it.

  Rey sighs, putting her plate down. “It’s just synthetic meat.”

  “I know what it is.”

  “It tastes fine,” she defends, inspecting the plate to see if she’s left any crumbs. She hasn’t.

  “I’m sure it does. I was more concerned with the way you ate it.”

  Rey stares in disbelief. “You think there’s something wrong with the way I eat?”

  There is a glint in his eyes that Rey thinks might be humor, but it is so dark that she isn’t sure. “Like a mynock attaching itself to power cables.”

  Rey throws the plate, not really caring that it sails right through him harmlessly. The message is hopefully the same. She sees the uptick at the corner of his lips and she glares. “Excuse me for being hungry.”

  “I thought you’d grow out of it,” Ben continues, not at all intimidated by her. “I ignored it because you were a child, but you’re eighteen now.”

  “Well _I_ thought you’d develop some tact, but it looks like we were both mistaken.”

Rey pointedly walks right through him to retrieve the plate, and doesn’t turn back around before heading to bed.

_*_

_Days later, and Ben still feels as though he is shaking from the shock. He’s on his way to meet the Supreme Leader when the sound seems to be sucked out in a vacuum and is replaced by the hum of the Force._

_“You changed your clothes,” she observes, regarding him as a curiosity._

_“And you haven’t.”_

_“I liked the other one better.”_

_Unable to push her out, he stares at the reflective black floor until she disappears._

_He sees his own reflection, but not hers._

*

 

  Rey wakes with a start, her breath catching when she sees him in the darkness kneeling before her.

  “Ben?” she calls hesitantly.

  For the briefest moment, his eyes flicker in her direction before his gaze settles on the floor. It is all the acknowledgement he offers. He doesn’t answer.

  “One of those times again,” she guesses aloud before settling back into her bed. There is no point in attempting to interact with him like this. It reminds her of an old navigation screen she’d helped repair a few years ago. The data was on the screen, but you couldn’t interact with it. A glitch had caused it to freeze.

  He’d be gone in a few moments.

 

*

 

 

“Where are you, Rey?” he asks again.

Rey shakes her head. “That doesn’t make sense, Ben. You’re here,” she gestures to Niima’s outskirts, “with me.”

“Not in a way that counts.”

“But you’ll never be,” Rey says, the admission surprising coming from her own lips.

“We’ll see.”

_*_

  _“You’ve been busy lately,” Rey remarks, appearing perched on his bed._

_He barely blinks at her sudden appearance, not bothering to look up from the datapad he is reading from._

_“I have,” he agrees, not elaborating. For some reason he never does._

_“You’ve ignored me the last three times we’ve seen each other.”_

_He glances up then, hearing the emotion in her voice. At fifteen she is strong, but still suffering from the insecurities that all adolescents experience. He is not one for comforting, but he at least has compassion for her situation._

_“I know,” he acknowledges. It takes every bit of effort he has to ignore her when Snoke is about. Somehow he’s managed so far. “I’d much rather have spoken with you.”_

_Predictably, she perks up at his admission. “You would?”_

_Ignoring the way she so obviously stands out among his things, he looks to her eyes. “Yes.”_

 

*

 

  “Here.” The man comes into her path, a skin of water outreached toward her.

  Rey takes a step back, taking in his appearance. Covered head to toe, she can only see his eyes. They’re bright green.

  “Thank you,” she says politely, “but I have my own water.”

  “You need more, then,” he insists, taking her hand and forcing the water skin into it. “Talking to yourself is a sign of desert sickness.”

  Rey’s eyes widen, and she stumbles over her words. “I’m not- I don’t-”

  “Take it from me,” he says to her, his voice forceful but his eyes full of pity. She hates pity. “Drink enough water, and it’ll go away.”

  He walks away before Rey has time to properly protest.

 

*

 

  Rey drinks the water from the stranger, and all the water she can spare from her own supply. She waits.

  Ben does not appear.

 

*

 

  _She hasn’t seen his mask, and for reasons he can’t quite determine, he never wants her to. The Force is merciful._

_He’s not supposed to want mercy._

*

 

  “Rey.”

  She turns from her work, eyes wide. He’s there, tall and dark as always, but _he’s there_.

  Without thinking, she runs the few meters it takes to get to him, halting abruptly in front of him. In awe, she whispers, “I thought I might not see you again.”

  Her words seem to puzzle him, and he examines her with searching eyes. A large gloved hand ascends slowly to her face, stopping at her lips as though he might touch them.

  “You’re dehydrated,” he states.

  If it wasn’t true, Rey would have tears spilling on her cheeks. “My vaporator broke,” she lies. Rey knows he can tell.

  “Can you fix it?”

  “I will,” she promises, unable to keep herself from smiling. “How have you been?”

  His eyes, usually dark and serious, are soft with concern. “It’s only been three days, Rey.”

 

 

*

 

  Sometimes Plutt has her work on repairs for the junk pile he calls a ship. He pays her in actual credits, though, so she doesn’t turn him down. For anyone else, he’d be paying three times as much for the help, but she is desperate and both of them know it.

  “The problem,” she growls as she works through several panels in the cockpit, “is the _damn_ compressor!”

  “It’s unlike you to curse,” Ben remarks.

  Rey glances back, annoyed. “Well _kriff_ , Ben, I hope I haven’t offended you.”

  He’s in a teasing mood, but she isn’t. Not when Plutt wants her to do the impossible.

  “What sort of vessel are you working on?” he asks, pointedly ignoring her sarcasm.

  “I don’t know,” Rey shrugs. “Smallish?”

  “Well, that’s helpful.”

  Rey rolls her eyes. “It’s old and out of commission. It’s a heavily modified smuggling ship.”

  “So you’re on a smuggling outpost, then?” he asks, because of course he would. He always does.

  She ignores it as usual. “Plutt had a compressor installed, and a good number of problems have occurred because of it, not the least of which being that it-”

  “-Puts too much pressure on the hyperdrive,” he finishes for her. “Rendering it ineffective for long distance travel.”

  “Exactly,” Rey confirms, finally slumping against the console. “But he refuses to listen to me.”

  “Well, the good news is that if he tries to use it there will be pieces of him in twelve different systems.”

  It’s a horrible joke, mostly because it’s morbid but also because it’s true. Rey can’t help but laugh anyway because Plutt is the sort of being that _would_ stubbornly insist he is right up until his own death.

  Through her laugher, she sees Ben smiling back tentatively.

 

*

 

  _Ben doesn’t think he’s ever made anyone laugh before; he’s never been told that he’s particularly funny. He hadn’t even meant it as a joke, but as his honest opinion._

_Yet there she is, laughing. Not_ at _him, even. Despite her experience, there is something in her that is inherently innocent and_ good _. The opposite of himself._

_He doesn’t deserve her laughter, nor the way her eyes light up whenever she sees him. If she understood the truth, she might be scared. Or maybe horrified, like everyone else. He craves the attention nonetheless._

_“Thank you,” she says, wiping a stray tear from her face. The good kind of tear._

_“For what?”_

_“For being here.”_

_Of all the things she might have said, Ben actually understands that one._

*

 

 The howling of a sand storm is still frightening. Though it hasn’t happened before, Rey imagines the sand drifting and burying her in the night. It’s hard to sleep.

She closes her eyes, imagines an island. The sound of the sand hitting the side of the durasteel panels turns into waves crashing over the rocks, and the howling wind the call of the ocean. Combinations of the most brilliant shades of green and blue are all the eye can see for miles.

Not alone, either. In her dreams she rarely is. In her nightmares, too.

A dark figure haunts them; tall and imposing, like a shadow at the edge of her mind.

When she thinks of that safe place, her island, the striking figure is Ben and she is not afraid.

_*_

 

  “I can _read_ , you schutta!” Rey resists the urge to push him. Words are the only real weapon she has against him anyway.

  He raises an eyebrow at her. “Full of colorful language recently, aren’t we?”

  “Well, I live in a ‘smugglers outpost’, remember?”

  “So smugglers taught you how to read, then?”

  Rey rolls her eyes. “You’re really caught up on the smugglers, then? I said I worked on a smuggling vessel, not that I worked _with_ them.”

  “Well you’re lucky then,” he says flippantly. “Do you even know what ‘schutta’ means?”

  Rey folds her arms.

  “Ah, you don’t.”

  “Switch off, Ben.”

 

*

 

  “I taught myself how to read,” she tells him a few days later.

  “That’s impressive.” He sounds genuine when he says it.

  “Did you learn in school?” she asks curiously. She’s never been to any sort of school. Everything she knows has been learned or taught in a practical setting.

  “A smuggler taught me,” he responds dryly.

  Rey throws her hands in the air and walks away.

 

*

 

  _“Ben.”_

_It’s usually the first word she’ll say when the connection starts. An acknowledgement that she sees him, or perhaps calling to him so that he’ll see her. He usually reciprocates._

_He doesn’t correct her, though. It has occurred to him to try, but the words never quite form on his tongue. He reasons with himself that she is a simple girl, and couldn’t possibly understand why he had changed his name. She’d barely come to terms with him changing his clothes._

_Snoke had insisted that he leave every part of Ben Solo behind. Snoke, for all his power and wisdom, still does not know about Rey. It was a concession to allow the connection to continue, not that he’s ever tried in earnest to sever it._

_He doesn’t ever admit to himself that the reason might be that she knows him better than most. He convinces himself that she needs him, but that he doesn’t need her._

_In the back of his mind, he knows both are lies._

_*_

 

  “I don’t have dreams,” he replies glibly.

  “Everyone has dreams.”

  He scoffs. “No, not everyone.”

  She pauses and thinks for a moment. “But you have nightmares.”

  A sigh escapes him. “Yes.”

  He’s told her about them before, just the once. It had been a painful conversation for both of them. “I sometimes dream of an island.”

  His relief at the redirection of the conversation is noticeable. “What do you see?”

  Rey tries to imagine it again. “I saw a holo once, when I was a little girl. Before…. Well, before. I remember the trees, and the water coming in waves. The sound of the wind.”

  “It sounds…” he pauses, lips pressed tightly together for several seconds. “It sounds nice.”

  “Better than here,” Rey sighs, closing her eyes. “I imagine that place when I’m trying to sleep, and then when I do I’m not alone.”

  “You see the dark figure?” he asks cautiously.

  She doesn’t want to talk of nightmares, though. Her eyes open. “No, I see you. We’re on the island together.”

  His breathing hitches, and she blinks up at him. They’re sitting across from each other so closely that their knees almost touch. A gloved hand reaches out toward her as though he might touch her leg. It settles on his knee.

  “I could make that happen, Rey.” His voice is low, his eyes unblinking. Ben is always intense, but rarely this intense. “If you would let me.”

  Her heart stutters with want. “They’ll be back, Ben. I can’t just… They’ll come back.”

  He turns away. “How long will you make me wait, Rey?”

  She considers, her heart tightening. “They said they’d come back.”

 

*

  _“You seem unhappy,” the girl comments._

_“I’m fine.”_

_For a girl of fifteen, her gaze is surprisingly scrutinizing. “You say that a lot.”_

_Sometimes he wishes for her presence, and others he desperately wishes she would at least stop asking questions. “Because it’s true.”_

_“I know what you look like when you’re fine; this isn’t it.”_

_Snoke would have him embrace the anger, the annoyance. Embrace it and_ control _it. Embracing it is the easy part. “And you? You don’t look happy to me, either.”_

_“I am,” she replied with a shrug. “Sometimes.”_

_“And how can you be? Knowing that you’re alone.”_

_“I’m not alone right now.”_

_“And when I’m not here?”_

_She pauses. “It’s just a matter of waiting.”_

_Shaking his head, he gives her his full attention. “If you wait for everything in life, you’ll find yourself with nothing. You have to take what you want, Rey.”_

_“The things I want aren’t the sort of things you just take.”_

_*_

 

“Do you remember the first time I saw you?” Rey asks to the darkness one night, the desert unseasonably cool. She pulls the blankets up to her chin, attempting to trap the heat inside.

Only the wind answers.

_*_

 

  _She appears to him in the hall of_ The Finalizer _, luckily empty except for the two of them. Her hair is half down, stopping just past her shoulders._

_It occurs to Ben for the first time that he’s only ever seen her hair one way; never down before. He’s seen it messy, matted, and sweaty, but always in the same configuration day after day._

_She blinks at him, hands pausing in mid motion as she gathers hair for the second bun. He’s caught her getting ready for the day._

_“My mother did it this way,” Rey explains to him as she finishes. “Or, I think she did. I remember her getting very annoyed with the tangles.”_

_An unbidden memory washes over him; Leia fussing over his unruly hair, begging for him to agree to cut it. He wouldn’t; Han Solo kept his hair short, and for that reason alone Ben had decided to keep it long._

_“It looks nice,” Ben replies to her, because he isn’t sure what to say besides that. It is simple compared to his mother’s elaborate styles that seemed to take hours to achieve. Normal people didn’t spend that long on their hair._

_Inexplicably, Rey blushes as she utters, “Thank you.”_

 

*

  _“Do you have a sweetheart?” she asks him, perched on his desk with her legs swinging carelessly. It makes her look like a child again, not the sixteen-year-old that she is._

_He holds back the sputter of words that come into his mind, and instead calmly sets down his datapad. “What?”_

_“A sweetheart,” she says again, and he thinks he can see the blush rising up her neck._

_He stares blankly._

_“Like a girlfriend,” she clarifies. “I think sweetheart sounds better, though.”_

_Her legs have stopped swinging, and her hands fidget in her lap. He takes a moment to consider what her behavior means. “Why?”_

_“Because I think you probably don’t,” she says, and this time he clearly sees the blush in her cheeks. Not terribly noticeable, but it’s there. “But if you did, maybe you wouldn’t be so grumpy all the time.”_

I’m not grumpy _, he almost says but instead thinks of what she had meant. An image passes over him; a smuggler and a princess argue, throwing insults as a droid ushers a boy out of the room._

  _“I highly doubt that.”_

_“Have you ever tried it?”_

_He has discovered over the years that Rey holds many talents, but the one that she seems particularly fond of is incessantly asking him questions. He wonders darkly for a moment if_ this _was why her parents had left her, but feels so guilty for thinking it that he almost apologizes out loud._

_“I don’t have time for anything like that,” he says, turning back to his datapad in an effort to prove his own point._

_Rey’s legs start swinging again. “Oh, of course,” she says knowingly. “I forgot about your busy schedule. What is it today? At eight hundred hours, mope in the ‘fresher. Nine hundred hours, brood by the viewport. At ten hundred hours-“_

_“Be pestered to death by a scavenger,” he finishes for her, snapping._

_His words do not have the desired effect. Instead, he sees her grinning._

_*_

_He lays in bed, restless and sore after his meeting with Snoke. He doesn’t expect to hear the thrum of the force, but he never does. She appears next to him, her back against the headboard and her knees drawn to her chest. Rey doesn’t look at him._

_“I met a boy,” she says._

_Sensing more to the story, he sits up._

_“He seemed to like me,” Rey says. “I think. He asked me to come see him in Niima if I had the chance.”_

_It’s the way she speaks as though she’s crestfallen than has his protective instincts flaring. “Tell me where you are,” he begs again, calculated and calm. He doesn’t feel it, though. Rage builds inside him at the thought of anyone hurting her._

_She turns to him then. “It’s not what you think,” she assures him, or attempts to. “I went to go see him today, but he’d already left. His crew got what they wanted, and they just left.”_

_The anger quells._

_“Everyone always leaves,” she whispers into her knees, face down so that he can’t see._

_“I haven’t left,” he reminds her, though it’s a sorry bandage for what she’s been through._

_“That’s because you can’t.”_

_It stings more than usual; the way she always brushes him aside. Trusting him with her thoughts, but not trusting his words in return. He would_ show _her, if she’d let him._

_“Rey,” he says, hands fisting at his sides in frustrations because he can’t_ touch _her to let her know how real he is. “_ Tell me where you are.”

_She shakes her head, otherwise unresponsive until the image fades and he is left with nothing more than the rumpled sheets on his bed._

*

 

  “I would take you to the island,” he whispers to her at night, and she pretends not to hear it. “I’d search the entire galaxy to find the right one.”

  _Then why don’t you_ , she thinks privately. She closes her eyes tightly, wanting so badly _not_ to want it to be true.

 

*

 

  _There are barriers between them. The ones that have always been there, like distance and years. Those are the obvious kinds, and then there are the ones that they create. The ones that Ben creates._

_She says it in passing while she’s working on her moisture vaporator. Rey has always been the chatty one between them. She prattles on and he half listens as she explains a dream or a fantasy she’s had. The name passes over her lips, and he freezes._

_“… like the sort of adventures Luke Skywalker and Han Solo go on.”_

_His muscles tense, his throat tightens. The memories flood him, surging through his veins like fire._

_“What do you know of Luke Skywalker?” He tries to stay calm, but she must hear the bitterness in his voice because she stops her tinkering to look at him._

_“Just hearsay, really. I know it’s all just legend and myth.” She cocks her head to the side, her eyes searching his face._

_He turns away._

_*_

_Part of him is relieved when she ignores his requests to find her. He means it when he says it, but ultimately knows it wouldn’t end well. He’s done his best hiding her from Snoke all these years, but that would end the moment he found her._

_Snoke would want her. He would see the power she possessed; the raw strength that he himself can already see. A part of him wants it; he can see Rey as a Knight of Ren, fighting by his side._

_But Snoke would know he lied. Kylo Ren would be punished, and he would not be able to protect Rey._

_He keeps asking. Every opportunity, every time the thought crosses his mind. In his wildest fantasies, he takes her from her wasteland of a home and shows her the galaxy. He instructs her in the ways of the Force and shows her the life she was meant to have._

_He has never wanted anything more, and yet less._

_*_

Jakku summers are barely palatable. Most humanoids find it too hot to venture forth, and Rey is no exception. It’s high noon on a midsummer day, and Rey is splayed out on her blanket in nothing but her underclothes. 

  She stares at the markings on the wall; the ones she’s made every single day since she claimed the old vessel as her home. There isn’t much else to do besides count them.

  _Six hundred and seventy-eight, six hundred and seventy-nine…_

  The humming starts then, of course, and Rey struggles not to lose count.

  “Not now, Ben,” she sighs, half delirious from the heat.

  _Six hundred and… and…_

  Sighing, she turns her head to look for him and nearly jumps in surprise to find him lying by her side. She almost tells him to shove off, but then sees that his eyes are closed and his breathing is slow and steady.

  “Oh,” she whispers to herself.

  She’s seen him sleep before, so it’s nothing new. Rare, but not so much of an anomaly that she feels the need to gawk. For just a moment, she lets herself admire how at peace he seems, and is glad to see that the nightmares don’t plague him currently, at least.

  A lock of hair falls slowly into his eyes, and Rey reaches out to swipe it away. Her finger passes through the dark strands, and her chest tightens. If she concentrates very hard she can just about convince herself that she can feel it.

  He stirs, his brow furrowing and Rey stills. “Rey…”

  She thinks he has awakened, but after a moment the crease in his brow disappears and he stops moving. Slowly, her hand retreats and she rolls over to face the opposite wall.

 

*

_His nightmares usually go one of two ways; he finds Luke, or he doesn’t. After he awakens from them, sweat soaked and blood run cold, he isn’t sure which one would be worse._

_“Are you sleeping well?” Rey asks him kindly._

_He doesn’t know how to answer; out of the corner of his eye, he can still see the green blade heading for his throat._

_*_

Rey puts away her speeder at dusk, eager to eat and rest after such a busy day. It’s later than she meant to be home, but her gains are worth it.

  As she prepares her evening meal, Rey is in good spirits. Energized rather than exhausted.  When Ben appears, she smiles broadly and thinks to grab her staff so they can spar before she gauges his mood.

  He’s grim, obviously upset and Rey hesitates to bring attention to herself.

  “Ben?” she prods after a moment passes in which he doesn’t see her. “Is everything all right?”

  He turns to her immediately, but doesn’t speak. Instead he stares at her with an intensity she has rarely been witness to.

  “Ben?” she prompts again, her nerves quickly heightening.

  “How long have we known each other?” he asks without preface. The way he speaks demands an answer. He isn’t in the mood for games.

  Rey blinks, momentarily scrambling to remember. “Six years? Maybe seven?”

  He isn’t pleased with the response, and Rey swallows thickly. “Seven years,” he mutters just loud enough for her to hear. “Seven years and I still don’t know why the Force has connected us.”

  Rey holds back a heavy sigh. “I don’t want to do this right now,” she tells him softly.

  He ignores her, and begins to pace. “We should have resolved this long ago, Rey.”

  “Resolved what?”

  “You and I. Whatever is happening to us, it’s here for a reason.”

  “Probably,” she admits wearily, eying him as he paces a few meters back and forth.

  He stops in front of her, his eyes swirling with emotion. “You aren’t taking this seriously. You never have.”

  The accusation spikes her nerves. “I do, Ben.”

  “Then prove it,” he demands. “Tell me where you are.”

  Rey bristles against the ultimatum. Her jaw tightens, and her eyes narrow. “Stop it.”

  He takes a step closer, and she strains her neck to meet his eyes in defiance. “Stop what?”

  “Stop forcing the issue,” she responds harshly, making demands of her own. “I already said I don’t want to talk about this.”

  He laughs bitterly. “I’ve let this go on too long in deference to your wishes, Rey. I won’t anymore.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” she counters. “I _won’t_ indulge in this.”

  She watches as he works his jaw, eyes dark with calculation. “You _will_ tell me where you are.”

  For a fleeting moment, she wants to. It passes. “Even if I did, what would that solve?”

  He looks as though he thinks the answer is obvious, but explains to her anyway. “It means I would find you. I would train you in the ways of the Force like I should have from the moment we first connected.”

  Before he finishes she’s shaking her head and clenching her fists at her side because she isn’t sure what else she can do to stop the emotions from bubbling to the surface. “You know that’s impossible.”

  “I know that it isn’t. I know the only thing preventing this from happening is your stubbornness.”

  “Stop it,” she repeats, somewhere between a plea and a command. “ _Stop_ telling me what I want to hear.”

  “Then you admit that you want it, too.”

  “Of course I want it,” she confesses angrily. “Why wouldn’t I? But I can’t because it’s impossible!”

“I can give you want you want,” he implores. “Name the planet, Rey.”

  She shakes her head and steps away, having failed to cease his ridiculous talk. He follows her, unrelenting. “Name the system, the quadrant. I’ll _find_ you.”

  “You can’t!” she explodes, whirling on him. She tries hard to stop it, but the moisture wells in her eyes. “You _can’t_.”

  He isn’t deterred by her tears.  “Why not?” he demands, never letting himself out of her sight even as she turns away to avoid him again and again.

  For the first time, Rey finds herself genuinely wishing he would disappear. Unable to escape him, but not quite willing to move through him, she looks to the ground instead. She sees his hands at his sides, fisted in a near mirror of her own. He doesn’t wear gloves.

  “Say it, Rey,” he urges. “Say it.”

  She lets a moment pass, hoping the connection will end. It is her luck that it doesn’t, and Ben stands waiting for her answer. Biting back more tears, she looks up to him again. Her voice is anything but steady as she chokes out, “Because you aren’t real.”

  He deflates immediately, and takes a step away from her.

  It is as though a weight is lifted from her shoulders, but placed on her heart. “You’ve never been,” she finally admits to him; to herself. The tears that she’s held back slip out one by one. “I’ve made you up.”

  His jaw works slowly as he examines her, seemingly at a loss for words. “You think… that you invented me? That I’m some figment of your mind?”

  She sniffles, thinking back to all of their encounters; all the times she felt alone, or when she’s been frustrated, or sad. His presence had made her feel better. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she whispers. “Maybe desert sickness, or something else.”

  His breathing is heavy, and she watches as his fists clench and unclench at his sides. “I don’t know whether I should admonish you for your willful ignorance, or for your arrogant perception of your own imagination.”

  Breath hitching, she looks up in surprise at the anger lingering in his eyes. “I don’t understand it,” she confesses, “but what else could it be?”

  “Real,” he says harshly.

  “You seem so-” she starts, but stops as abruptly as his image vanishes.

 

*

 

  _“Why don’t you talk about your family anymore?” she asks beside him as he silently watches the Knights of Ren train from another room._

_“You say that as if I spoke of them to start with,” he says, brushing her aside easily._

  _“Ben,” she says his name pointedly, and he glances at her. “You’re avoiding the question.”_

_He takes a breath and holds it. Releases it. “I don’t associate with them anymore.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Because they were nothing but liars and betrayers. I have no interest in being their son.”_

_Her nose scrunches in a way that he’s become fond of. “How did they betray you?”_

_Considering the question and the implications, he sidesteps it. “They think I’m a monster.”_

_Rey is aghast, offended for him. He almost smiles at her outrage._

_With wide eyes, she asks,  “Why would they think that?”_

_He turns to her fully so that she’ll know that he means his next words. “Because I am.”_

_*_

  She thinks he’ll ignore her next time they meet. She already knows neither one of them will apologize, but after enduring the silence one of them will speak again and everything will return to normal.

  One day passes, then two, and another three after that.

  One week.

  Two.

  Rey tries to pretend it doesn’t affect her. When she returns home at night, she marks her wall, eats, and exercises. When she sleeps she can’t see the island anymore.

  The dark figure at the corner of her nightmares draws closer.

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this around New Years after the fifth time I went to see The last Jedi, and all the scenes just came pouring out of me. I've argued with myself over posting this, but here it is.
> 
> Please let me know your thoughts!


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